craig

I'd think they'd each probably go for minor leaguers of varying quality. Cubs have interest in lefty relievers, so anybody who could throw left-handed and has even sniffs upper minors, they might go for that. Rotation is also shallow, so if they could get somebody who might be some kind of a minor-league insurance guy, perhaps better than Atkins, that could make sense. Or if they can't get somebody who's good enough for even those kinds of roles, just take whatever low-minors guy they can who has a chance to become a major-leaguer later. I'd think the guys have different values. Somebody will take Cedeno to be in the majors: I'd think he might bring back a prospect who could crack our top-20 list. Pie, maybe about the same, although perhaps lesser. Cedeno's limited offense is more acceptable at SS than Pie's no-offense is in outfield. Hill is a total wildman at this point, and a head case besides, so I don't think you're going to get anybody who would crack our top 30 for him. Probably get some 24-year-old A-ball wildman or something.

Bill White pitched for Texas last year, he's smart signing with us, given our need for LH relief. If he can put something together, this is as good a spot as any for him to get an opportunity, especially an opportunity on a winning team. Not sure how likely that he'll "put something together", though. Last year for Texas: 11BB/1K. I can only imagine how intense the pressure must be for a guy like that, 29 years old, you've been bouncing around, you get a shot. I know it's not like the world series or whatever, but the pressure on a middle-aged 4A guy must be just incredible when they get an occasional short opportunity. Hardly surprising that when control is your problem in the first place, under that kind of pressure that it only gets worse.

Despite the strident tone, and the conclusion which I don't share, I think video makes a bunch of accurate points. Spears doesn't have anything exceptional in four of the five traditional "tool" areas: power, speed, arm, or defense. Clearly he has no star power, and as noted most guys with a chance start out at SS even if they end at 2B, so his 2B history is suspicious. That said, he may perhaps score well in the most important tool: he can hit, and he can walk and get on base. There is sometimes a place in the major leaguers for middle infielders who can OBP at .380+ in the Southern League at age 23. I think the defensive aptitude issue is crucial for him. SS demands a lot; there are other utility players who have useful and money-making big-league careers who can't play SS. Maybe video is correct and the fact that he was moved off of SS so quickly is clear proof that he is inadequately tooled defensively. If not SS, then why not 3B? Has he played so little 3rd because he's got a noodle-arm? If she's limited to 2B/DH/PH/LF, he's going to have a hard time finding a big league spot. But often minor-league 3B is given to bigger guys who look like they might develop some power, whether or not they ever do. At 5'11", that was never Spears. So perhaps he does have a shot to be a decent 2B/3B utility guy? If he has the ability to play a competent 3B in addition to a competent 2B, then he's got a shot. "Again, the ugly sister must prove herself again and again to be a legitamate prospect." If Spears is ugly defensively, he's not a prospect. But ugly and average are different. When looking for a utility/bench/platoon player, you aren't looking for a star; you are often satisfied with somebody without any 'anti-tools", somebody who is anti-awful. If you aren't awful at anything, and you keep putting up .380+ OBP's, you can play in the major leagues even if you aren't exceptionally fast or strong or rocket-armed or SS-caliber. And yes, he'd need to prove himself again and again, in terms of being the good OBP-guy. With no eye-catching tools, an average defensive guy better keep getting hits and getting on base.

"The Cubs spent $2.14 million on just these 8 guys in 2008:..." That would put us up in the top10

Thanks, cal, good question and nice to see the dollar figures in response. Earlier Kenney had alluded to "two Koreans" costing $1.5. Not sure his dollars were spot on, but it would see that Lee and Su-Min Jung were the guys he had in mind.

Jonathan Mota (Aragua): 21/71, 4 2B, 2 HR, 21 BB, 16 K, 3/7 SB, 6 E - .296/.468/.437/.905 Not often you see a cat with a .172 IsoD.

I'm not all that upset about Hendry's moves. I think they've been logical, given the following four premises (none of which is necessarily true, but it's my hypothetical logic train:) 1. Cubs will sign Bradley 2. Cubs are budget tight, and could not have signed Bradley while keeping DeRo 3. Cubs already knew they were going to be facing budget wall during midseason when they acquired Harden. Picking up Harden was essentially borrowing from moneys otherwise spent this winter. From those premises, the choice was to go for it with Harden while 2008 seemed like a prime chance to win it all. But if we count Harden as kind of counting on this winter's team-building, and if I assume Bradley will be signed, then the change of faces might look like: DeRosa-Wood-Murton-Ceda-Murton/Gallagher/Patterson out Harden-Bradley-Gregg-Miles-Vizcaino-Stevens/Gaub/Archer in Overall I wouldn't criticize that overall exchange of outs and ins. The "ins" all have risk, Harden and Bradley especially durability-wise. But if you'd asked me on June 1 whether I'd rather have the top group on the roster come Jan 10, or the bottom group, I'm pretty sure I'd have chosen the bottom group. Getting Harden came with a cost. It really pinched the winter budget, big-time, and I think in large part you can see the DeRosa/Wood/Marquis money-driven moves rooted in the Harden pickup.

Just to clarify on this, this is stated by Olney in the context of an article regarding Manny Ramirez, who he might sign with, and why the cubs aren't candidates. Perhaps the Cubs truly are "maxed out", and can't even afford a lefty reliever, much less Bradley or manny. But it may also be that they don't have $$ for manny ("maxed out"), but do still have enough discretionary flexibility to add lesser contract(s).

I like the analogy that Outshined placed for Vitters' ceiling: Aramis Ramirez. Ramirez is not an "athletic" type player, and Vitters isn't either. Both have strong arms defensively, both have excellent coordination (according to the scouts at least), obviously Vitters currently is much faster than Pokey Aram (Vitters may never be as slow as Aram, but who knows once he's 30....). Offensively, both profile as guys with quick bats and good contact skill. Easy to say that for Vitters now at 18; will we still say his contact is so special when he's facing the movement of big-league pitching? Likely not, but that's the ceiling. S if indeed he does have that excellent contact ability that Aram has, he'll be able to hit for high average ala Aram. The ceiling is that his strength will mature; the combination of good bat speed, good contact skill, and maturing power should give him excellent in-game power, again ala Aram. Not sure how great his BP-power will be, perhaps not Harvey-esque. But actual HR-output is a combined function of strength and contact, and if his contact skills are good enough, I'd be surprised if his strength didn't end up sufficient to be a good HR-hitter, possibly even an exceptional one. A .300-30HR-.900 OPS profile, that's within the ceiling. Once you're in that arena, it's a small incremental step to .320-40HR-1.000 OPS range, MVP-range. Not likely, but I don't think those levels can be said to be beyond the ceiling. The other qualities that make me like the Aram analogy is the limited walks and the limited speed. Hopefully Vitters will approach Aram's remarkable anti-K contact ability. It's hard to swing as hard as Aram and miss as rarely as he does; so that's not an easy ceiling to reach. Obviously the floor is below that of known major leaguers. The floor could be Ryan Gripp. I recall at draft Gripp being ceilinged to Jeff Bagwell as hitter, and as competent 3B defensively. He hit with power in A-ball, but by AA his defense was deficient even at 3B; that could well prove the case with Vitters, he might be a 1B/DH/LF, and perhaps too slow even for LF, by the time he's 21 and in AA. His HR power is projected; but it's possible that he'll never be a HR-loft guy, and if he doesn't improve faster than the competition, by AA the movement and velocity may be such that he just doesn't hit the ball on the nose often enough to be a 20-HR guy. If contact becomes a problem versus superior pitchers, not only will the HR's remain modest but the K's will rise; without the benefit of HR's to sustain BA/OBP/slugging, and with the hit that K's place on BA and OBP, you could easily be seeing a guy who just won't hit enough, or with enough power, to justify 3B defense or 1B position. And if he never takes more walks, that will further limit a guy who may not have enough contact to hit for high average or high HR's. As with most any player, I think his future will hinge on his contact skills, pitch recognition, and power offensively, and on his defense. There is a lot of space in between Gripp on the bottom extreme (both defensively and offensively) and Aram-plus on the top extreme (both offensively and defensively). At this point it's too early to know if he'll be really good. But there's chance enough that he might be.

I love the fact Flieta is excited about Eljaua, hopefully Eljaua can have similar success as Oneri did in that role before handing it to Serra. They were in much need of a brand facility in the DR as it was legendary how poor thier previous facility was, I've been critical of their Latin American scouting program for years amd it appears they are on the right track. .... Questions/comments: 1. Two Koreans, 1.5 mill, "not" the "two that just started in the system last year. Guys, who is he talking about? Rhee was already in the system in 2007, so I'd think he'd be "not" in the two. Lee was sort of in the system this past season, and he listed at $700 or $750, IIRC. Is he one of the two? With Kenney considering Lee "this" season (included), and Rhee "last" season (not included)? Or is not even Lee included, since he did play in that Australian league? I've got to assume that Lee is one of the two, but even if he is, who's the other? OFer Ha and pitcher Min are the other two Koreans I recall having signed. have we gotten $$ info on them? I hadn't appreciated that either of them would have been a $750 guy, or both together. Have we signed somebody else, or which of those two is the $750-type guy, or what's your take on this? Or is Kenney just talking big and he doesn't really know what he's talking about? 2. Kenney's enthusaism for the international scouting is very encouraging. 3. Kenney's (and yours, ping) spin on the Dominican acadamy, I'm not sure I understand. MacP showed up in what, 95, and said he was going to get that done. Hasn't the Dominican facility been built and fancy for five or many more years by now? I don't quite understand how, if MacP kept talking about that, why 14 years later management should still be talking as if it's just happened and the corner will turn now. Even if it has been only within the last 6 years, I'm not sure how inspired I should be. During the 95-01 era, the system was getting Cruz, Z, Guzman, Marmol, Pie, Pinto, Beltran, Cueto. If that was pre-facility days, having the facility doesn't seem to be getting us anywhere close to getting the kind of talent we got then. 4. Eljaua, the rock star scout. Like you, ping, I'm very enthused that Kenney is so fired up about him. Even more so, I'm delighted that Kenney specifically refers to him as rock star scout .... "for the Dominican". His title was "special assistant", so I'd wondered whether he was really going to be digging up international talent for us, or tagging along with Hendry at GM meetings and discussing trades and free agent signings with Hendry's other special assistants, all with the purpose of training himself to be a GM down the road more than to acquire teenage Dominican talent for the Cubs. The concept that he will really be scouting the Dominican for us, and might do a "rock star" job of it, that's really exciting. If he's a star scout, I also wouldn't think he'd take a new job unless he was assured that he'd have $$ to spend on guys that he likes. 5. Eljaua further: Eljaua has background as an organization boss of Dominican or international scouting, with previous orgs. But he has not been given that title with the Cubs. Instead, just recently and subsequent to his hiring not Eljaua but instead Serra was announced as the Latin boss. What do you think is going on here? If Eljaua going to really be the guy on the field, charming kids and parents, networking with all the people he knows from his previous experience to get better leads and better access to real talent, possibly hiring some additional people who he knows are good from his previous operations? And Serra is getting bumped upstairs to a more office/administrative job where he doesn't need to travel as much or sell as much? Or are these titles really meaningless, that Serra's redesignation means little in terms of actual responsibilities, it's just a resume padder and with it comes a salary bump needed to keep a guy they think is effective? And Eljaua is tabbed as "special assistant" because that's the best paying job, and you couldn't get him if you designated him as "Dominican scout"? Any thoughts on what's really going on here?

Nice article, cal, thanks for finding and posting this and other stuff like that. Very helpful to get the personality insights. Too bad that Lee had surgery too. Hopefully they will be "like oil changes" and they'll both come back better than before. Article seems to confirm that Lee scouts as a pure shortstop, not as a guy who'll have outgrown the position by the time he fills out a little bit. Hopefully his arm post-op will bounce back enough that he can stay there, and not need to move to 2B or LF on account of his arm.

That's a pretty interesting resume. If he's 39 now, then he was only 23 when he started scouting in 92. Assistant director of Latin American operations at age 25 (in 94). Director of Latin American scouting by age 30 (1999). Director of Latin scouting for the powerful Red Sox at age 32. These are some very high-responsibility assignments at very young ages, in very good organizations. This guy must have some qualities that draw attention. It's interesting that he's moved around so much. Since 97, he's left four organizations (Florida, Detroit, Boston, Pittsburgh.) Perhaps that reflects a very talented, ambitious guy who has his target on becoming a GM someday. His first years with Marlins overlap when Hendry was a Marlins scout, that's probably where Hendry met him. Hopefully he'll add something to the organization. My guess is that he's done his Latin directing, and wants more experience as "special assistant" so that he can compete for a full GM job. But my hope is that he becomes active in overseeing our Latin and international operations. During the late 90's, the Cubs were effective in Latin America, when they had Fleita as Latin director. Once Hendry went up into special assistant, Fleita came over to farm director, and we haven't really had a Latin director since. Serra and Ortega have been the guys, with nobody checking or pushing them or crosschecking their guys. It's interesting to wonder whether a guy who have been the director for three programs that have had success in Latin America might not have some ideas for making us more effective down there. Who knows, maybe he even has some connections so that he could hire some additional good scouts to supplement or perhaps replace Serra or Ortega. Anyway, hopefully down the road we'll see this guy as having made a difference for our International operations.

unless he has figured out how to throw strikes consistently, i don't know how you can be so sure about that. You don't need control to be a LOOGY... just a slider. Heh, I'm not sure I understand what's being said or implied here. Just a good slider? Does the slider need to have any control, or not? Is the thinking that Veal has a slider? A good one? A semi-controlled one? I don't really know. I know at one point he was said to have a curveball that moved, although he couldn't control it. More recently he's been said to throw a slider, that sometimes had good movement and sometimes showed brief flashes of consistency, but did not show good movement and good control both with any consistency. there have been times when it's been said that Veal throws a good fastball, but rarely with control and again the velocity was inconsistent. I'm a bit surprised that Veal didn't get rostered, and that dudes like Mateo and Berg got rostered ahead of him. That's especially interesting, in that we have absolutely zero roster pressure. Even with those three added guys, none of whom are especially significant as prospects, I believe we're still only at 36 roster spots. I don't expect we'll come close to maxing out at 40 pre-Rule 5 or after we finish signing free agents. (It's not like we're going to sign four meaningful free agents, that's for sure. And if we make trades, we're likely to lose as many or more 40-man guys as we gain.) That Veal didn't get rostered, when all he needed to beat was Mateo or Berg, and when it would have been no problem to add him in addition to Mateo and Berg, probably tells us something. I'm not sure what, exactly, but it isn't anything favorable about Veal. Maybe they know he's already got arm problems. Maybe they know he's already got substance problems. Maybe they simply know that whatever he was once projected to become or was scouted to have past, that his stuff just hasn't grown into what they hoped it would; that his control is awful; and that his actual stuff is less than it used to be. At one point Fleita viewed his curve as the best breaking pitch in the farm. Since then, they've decided his curve is so wild that they scrapped it, and tried to replace it with a slider. Is that slider any good, and does he have any control over it? Based on his 10.00 ERA in AFL, and his >1.5 WHIP in back-to-back AA summers, it would appear not. At one point his fastball was viewed as excellent, with a chance to be a plus-plus pitch. More recent reports are that while it touches low 90's on occasion, it's mostly upper 80's. So it would appear that perhaps he currently profiles as a soft-tossing wildman: *Fastball: minus velocity, minus control *Breaking ball: decent movement, minus control. He's been a really, really bad pitcher, and he's gotten worse each year, and got further worse in front of the AFL scouts. Sometimes a wildman figures something out, and sometimes a guy who has occasionally thrown hard recovers velocity. So maybe he'll put things together sooner or later, I hope so. Maybe that will happen abruptly in somebody else's camp this spring, and he'll not only get drafted but stick, and not only stick in spring but stick all year, and not only stick all year but actually be somewhat good. But most likely Veal is just a really bad pitcher with bad control of mediocre stuff.

How much SS has he played? I'd be very surprised if he was ever viewed as more than a 3rd or 4th string emergency SS in the majors.

Sorry for posting, since I haven't read all 20 pages in detail. Ceda has a big arm, and a chance to be very good. But he's also awfully wild. He might be as good as Gregg fairly soon, and a lot better eventually. But I don't think he had any likelihood of being used immediately and contributing this year, given his wildness and inexperience and lack of a second pitch. And I'm not sure how great the odds are for him. Between wildman and body-fat, I'm uncertain how likely he'll ever be to have the stuff/control/brains/commitment to be a high-level major-leaguer. I agree with meph that Howry 05-07 was very good. I also admit that I don't at all expect him to revisit that. He's 35, he's been worked hard, and he'd lost a lot of velocity this past year. If there was reason to think he'd have the arm strength and velocity (and with it the arm strength to make his slider work better than this past year), I'd prefer him over Gregg. For Bob's sake I hope I'm wrong, but I don't this this past year was just a random reliever thing. I think it was an arm thing, and I'm not in position to assume that at 35 his arm is going to be much stronger and healthier and faster next summer. If Gregg can perform at or near the level that Howry did over 05-07, I'd be OK with that. I agree with Tim, losing Ceda still leaves Guzman, Samardz, and Cashner as potential power relievers. So losing Ceda neither leaves the relief cupboard bare, nor costs us a 2009 contributor since I didn't expect him to pitch in the majors this upcoming year, at least not in any meaningful way. The easiest way to make an "A" free agent is in relief. There are so many relievers that being in the "A" percentile is not difficult. So if Gregg performs at anything close to the Howry 05-07 level, he'll certainly classify as an "A" next winter. It really stinks that despite his lousy year, that Howry still made A. Nobody is going to give up a draft pick to sign him, and obviously we aren't going to arb him. If he'd been a "B", anybody could have signed him at no cost, and we might have snagged a nice pick for him if somebody had signed him cheap before the arb deadline. O well. This will probably sound really repulsive and brainless and non-analytical. But over the last several years, Cub management has made a number of scouting decisions that have been consistently panned on this board, but have sometimes turned out to be pretty justifiable. (Edmonds, Derosa, dempster-to-rotation, Lilly, Marquis, Theriot, signing Howry, signing Eyre...) I'm hoping that Gregg will end up being justifiable as well.

Remember, Shinsano is a part-time Cub scout in Korea. If Shinsano is at all in touch with how Cub management feels about the guy, I think it's safe to say that we won't be involved in any competitive bids.

I wonder if Infante is at all interesting. He lists at 5'11" RHP, 20 years old, so not a lot of go crazy about. But he was used exclusively as a starter as an 18-year-old in Venezuelan league twosummers ago, with humdrum numbers (37K/79IP, tons of hits, 4.0 ERA). This year he again got to start every time in DSL, and again had humdrum but improved stats (53K/81IP, 2.66 ERA, with low walks and improved G/F ratio). Now this winter he's 16K/0BB/9IP. I wonder if he's got a decent arm and is starting to improve his breaking pitch enough to get more K's?

We still haven't gotten any ideas about what kinds of dollars these two got, have we? I'm guessing unless a guy is going to make $100K or so, it wouldn't be much worth it to sign. I'm assuming these two would probably be in the $100-200 type range where most of our pricey but not top-shelf internationals have fallen. (I'm imaging Choi, Kweon, Ryu to be premium class, well beyond $1; Rhee and Lee and Suarez to be high level although not millions; and then some of these kinds in the $0.1-0.2 range.

In other words, the players will obstruct an international draft. Standard negotiating tactic. They will obstruct it unless mlb makes some concession to them. As always, and as is negotiations-logical, their necessary approval means that they have veto power over anything mlb wants to do. So they can use their approval as a bargaining chip, and certainly will withhold approval unless they get something back in exchange for granting it. Weiiner says the players will consider it "if it's important to management" is code for "if it's important enough to management to give us something we want in order to buy our approval". You want approval for a world-wide draft? How about raising the minimum wage by $100K? How about affording minor league free agency after 5 years instead of 6? How about raising the luxury-tax cutoff by 20%? How about raising the percentage of players with at least two but less than three full years of service time who are arbitration eligible (Super Twos) by 20%? How about expanding the rosters from 25 to 26? Anytime management wants to change anything, it's always an opportunity for the union to leverage a better contract for themselves. So the union will always obstruct anything, as a matter of general principle/opportunity, even if they could otherwise care less what happens. This is in part why minor changes are so very difficult. If the change is not that big, it won't be important enough to management to motivate them making a sufficient concession to buy off the union. I don't expect anything to change in the forseeable future. This just isn't that high of a priority for management, not enough to justify giving the kind of concession that the union would require in order to agree.

Thanks for info, cal. Interesting that Shafer was so slow. First outing of official instructs, may be that he wasn't at full speed. But I think an upper 80's fastball helps explain why BA hasn't been too buzzed. The Carpenter report sounded better than normal, not at his frequent wild yesterday I guess. But that his fastball is a 2-seamer, and still was running at 93, that's encouraging. I should have known, of course, since he's been a groundball-oriented guy. The MacDaniel comments, that scouts thought he was unsignable, is encouraging. This 94-95 with a hammer curve, I've heard that before. Helps to explain why he was top-25, and how he got such stellar numbers at Boise. Did we ever get any signing-bonus info on him? Did the Cubs superslot significantly? Or did they get him for $100K or whatever, somewhat high for a 13th or 14th rounder, but nothing extraordinary? Hope Phil gets us some more reports this Instrux.

Thanks for the info, raisin. Nice to read the somewhat favorably comments about Castro at SS, and Lake both defensively and as a potential power guy. Power matters a ton, so that's in Lake's favor. But if the ability to hit curveballs is in Castro's favor, and he's a fundamentally smarter and more sound player, he may have the edge. I'll go with Castro for now, preliminary as that may be. I was very happy that those guys were viewed as interesting enough to merit. Wasn't sure how good either looked to an outsider. Disappointed that nobody else was. As others have mentioned, I'd have hoped that at least one of Neifi, Cerda, Watkins, Jones, Gonzalez, Antigua, and Suarez would have looked jazzy enough to make it. That said, the fact that we've got at least 9 guys who we thought might merit consideration reflects how many guys there can be at that level who still have a chance. Probably every org down there likewise has a handful of guys who have some potential, whether it be some power or some speed or some defense or a fast fastball or an interesting breaking ball. Probably somewhat hard to guess which guys will improve and which won't. Hopefully a good ratio of the Cub rookie leaguers will develop. It's a pretty inexact science. Soto, Marmol, and Castillo were nobodys in rookie league. Kelton, Mark Reed, Billy Petrick, those were hot commodities. So you never know.

1. meph mentioned good size, but he lists at only 6'1". That probably worked against him in draft. Drafters prefer 6'3"+ types, and often assume 6'1" types aren't durable enough for rotation. 2. As badnews notes, the slider seems to be the signature. Draft reports did not so note, and his college results didn't show the spectacular K rates. I assume the slider got better. At draft, he was viewed as a shortish guy with neither a signature fastball or a signature breaking pitch. Now he's got a knockout slider. The disconnect between his pro results and his draft status is the difference the development of a killer slider makes. (The appearance of an effective splitter had a simillar effect for Samardz in going from AA to AAA.) 3. badnews notes that the number of guys whose breaking ball succeeds in minors but not in majors is multitude. (Smarter hitters, better scouting, hitters get more familiar, etc..) That happens. But there are also plenty of useful major leaguers who live on the slider, and may not have any other asset pitches. Obviously that depends on how good the slider is, and how good the fastball is (average, slightly above average, way below average, etc...) Wuertz had several useful years with nothing even close to average to support his plus slider. Time will tell how good Jackson's slider really is: good for A-ball but big-league pedestrian, or really good even at big-league level. badnews is absolutely right that since the standards of slider excellence are way lower in A-ball than in the NL, his slider might not be enough. But maybe it really will be a plus-plus pitch, even relative to big-league sliders? Same for fastball and control; good enough against bad A-ballers so that he can throw strikes, get into 2-strike K-counts, avoid walks, and not get punished? But will the same fastballs he's throwing for strikes and for count-control in A-ball be big-league HR-fodder? Or is the fastball fast enough and with enough corner control so that it's likely to be workable even in majors? We'll see. His window of excellence has been pretty short. He may never recapture the magic that he had this summer, and even if he does it may not be enough to be useful in the majors without additional improvement. No sure thing. But I admit I'm pretty interested, and think he's got a decent shot to become a useable reliever, and possibly even more. The number of K's he's gotten suggests he's got a pretty good slider. And the low number of walks suggests that either his control can be pretty good. or else he has enough life on his fastball that he doesn't need to paint the corners with it. 4. Meph already notes that from the start it seemed a surprise he'd slipped that far. Perhaps he could have been almost as easily taken in round 4. But I wonder if he lost the benefit of some doubt in that perhaps some drafters wondered if he was serious or committed? I thought I heard that he's kind of a carefree, happy-go-lucky, joke it up kind of guy. Not sure if that's true, but I wonder if some drafters weren't sure he had the work habits and the drive and intensity that they tend to like?

You said something to the effect that at max he was .750'ish reserve. I suggested that wasn't true, and that there were indicators to suggest he could hit for power, or for low walks, or for a lot of XBH, and possibly even walk some. If he was to hit the high end on all four of those categories, he could be squarely in Ethier territory. (With better defense. But even at my most optimistic projection Colvin has no chance of reaching Ethier's walk-levels.) Likely, no. Most likely he'll fall short of his plausible possibilities in one or more of the four areas I mentioned. In which case he'll fall shy. But there is a lot of space in between .750 (at best, as you implied) and where Ethier is this year (.889). He's got a shot to be an .800+ guy; if that seems beyond credible/plausible/possible to you, then I don't think you're being objective. You're not a dumb guy, so I assume you can also fathom the distinction between possible and probable. So while .800+ is *not* probable, it is possible. Your earlier post suggested that .750 was the best we could hope for. Not true. On Fleita, I am a complex enough thinker to recognize that he is a gusher, but that sometimes he is unexpectedly vindicated. (Using the logic that if Fleita every speaks favorably about a player with uninspiring minor-league stats, that the player is certain to fail, that would mean that Theriot, Soto, and Samardz could not be showing big-league success.) So it's possible that Fleita will be vindicated in the Colvin case, as he appears to have been vindicated re Soto and Samardz. Second, I am a complex enough thinker to realize that no matter how dumb management might be, they still make decisions regarding playing time, playing position, and opportunity. If management decides a guy can't play center, it doesn't matter what BA says: the guy won't play center for us. But if management decides Colvin can play center, he may get an opportunity to do so, even if BA doesn't think he's well suited. So since management-decided opportunity is important, I think it's always relevant to listen to what positions management thinks a player is suited for.

Thanks for the notes, cal. I got a 3rd-hand scouting report that agreed he threw in low 90's, but suggested that he can touch faster than that, and that he gets into the low 90's pretty easily. So perhaps he's being realistic, that he's got more in him and may throw harder more consistently future? Anyway, I thought that was pretty encouraging, a guy can go a long way with low 90's, good control, and a sharp slider that can overpower you at any time. We've had 8th round types before who pitched pretty well, but were somewhat limited guys whose stuff didn't work up the ladder. I don't get the impression that Jackson profiles as a guy who's already hit his ceiling, or has a fringy arm or fringy stuff.

Fleita talked at length at an AA game shortly before Colvin started to hit, and mentioned that Colvin had just changed his stance. Anyway, a poster at bleacher bums is friends with some Smokies people and was in on this, and had the chance to ask Fleita a few questions. He said that at that time Fleita believed/expected that Colvin could become an all-star (yes, in the majors, not in an Indy League...) and saw him as a CF. I mention that because while BA has their sources, the Cubs are watching their guys continuously. BA can talk to a scout who hadn't seen Samardz for ages, or a SL guy who saw him twice this spring. But the Cubs people are watching their players every game. I'm not saying that means the Cubs are the best scouts. But that sometimes if there is a difference of opinion between the Cubs and BA, it's not 100% certain that the Cubs will be wrong or ill-informed. They may be better informed about what their people can and can't do than BA, because they simply have much more observational basis for their judgments. Obviously any comment by Fleita is, well, by Fleita. We know the Fleita-gush. He's not only a glass-is-half-full guy, he's a glass-is-overflowing guy. He probably still thinks that Fox can be a good big-league catcher, or that Harvey's tool-you-can't-teach can still make him into a star slugger, or whatever. So Fleita's view may be total dopey. But Fleita apparently is still pretty convinced that Colvin will make very good, and that he can play center.